About Me

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Hello! I am Diana, wife to Ted. We are the parents to one miraculous 6-year-old little princess. Aside from my daughter my earthly passions include home-cooking at an intermediate level, Music, knitting, photography, learning Adobe Photoshop, digital scrapbooking, and online social networking.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Recipe: Hearty Healthy Heroes - Italian Food

Heroes, subs, Italians, grinders, hoagies, sammies: if I had learned one thing during my 4 years working as a Subway "sandwich artist" it was that there were many, many names that people called sandwiches, and it mainly depended on what region of the country they came from.
When people would come in and order a "roast beef grinder" it would be relatively easy to figure out what they wanted me to make, and relatively easy to figure out that they probably weren't from Maine.
It was the term "Italian" that gave us trouble at a little Subway restaurant here in Maine. Here we call them ALL Italians (pronounced "eye-talian"). Go into a local, non-franchised, sandwich shop and order a "hoagie" or "sub" and you are bound to get a puzzled look, and don't count on them having lettuce to put in there. The term "Italian" extends to all sandwiches, no matter what the filling, prepared on any form of elongated bun. However, if a Mainer orders an "Italian" with no other specifics given he/she wants Ham, American cheese, onions, tomatoes, pickles, green peppers, black olives, oil, vinegar and salt & pepper on a bun, wrapped in wax paper with a rubber band around it. No shredded lettuce involved.

That's all fine when you live and work in Maine and everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. The problem comes in when you work at a place like Subway that is a chain, and is world-wide. You see, Subway has two sandwiches The Italian BMT and the Spicy Italian, neither of which are the type of sandwich mentioned above. The BMT has ham, bologna, pepperoni, and Genoa salami (the whole "what does the BMT stand for?" is another post entirely) and the Spicy Italian is a concentrated amount of pepperoni and Genoa salami. These sandwiches are probably more appropriately called "Italians." So you want to confuse a Mainer, tell him to walk into a Subway and order an "Italian."

From the Sandwich Artists' point of view, the trick is to observe age and listen for accent. If the person ordering the "Italian" (pronounced Ah-talian) is below the age of 25 and has a southern, Canadian, or non-regional diction they most likely want something directly off the Subway menu and will want to pick and choose their own veggies, including lettuce. If the person is older than 25 and orders an "eye-talian" then the only question you need to ask is "turkey or ham?" This person does not want any more involvement and the making of the "Italian" until it is time to pay at the cash register.

All of this was to say that I made big yummy sandwich for dinner last Wednesday night, and I am calling it a "hero" for my readers' sake even though in my native tongue we would call it a big "eye-talian."

The idea of making a large "community" sandwich for dinner, may seem like a novel one, but it really is economical, and if you are not making your own bread, time saving. And we all know from Subway's formerly fat spokesperson who shall remain nameless that meat & veggie subs are good for you and melt all your fat away almost instantly. Please note sarcasm.
I started with a fresh batch of homemade Honey Wheat Bread...a recipe that I found a long time ago on allrecipes.com . Simply assemble all ingredients given below in the order they are listed into the pan of your bread machine and set it on the dough cycle.

This is, by far, my favorite bread recipe:

1 1/4 cups warm milk
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 package of active dry yeast
2 tablespoons butter, melted

The only thing to keep in mind is that this makes way too much dough to actually bake in your bread machine and you will have to lift the cover about 30 mins. before the dough cycle is done to give it room to rise.

Next, turn out the dough onto a floured surface, divide as needed and shape into loaves. For my purposes I divided the dough in half and made one large baguette and one traditional pan loaf for use as sliced bread in later meals:

Allow bread to double in size (45 mins. to 1 hour) and bake in a preheated oven for 35-40 mins:

Allow bread to cool on a wire rack.

A good sandwich spread can make or break a sandwich...it can be the deciding factor between bland and bold. Regular mayo and mustard are fine, but I prefer a more gourmet sandwich spread. I have come up with a few yummy ones, most notably roasted red pepper mayo and sweet garlic mayo. I decided to go with the sweet garlic mayo for this sandwich. Here is how you make it:

You will need 1/4 cup of mayo or salad dressing (I prefer to use the salad dressing - Miracle Whip - type for sandwiches because it is already seasoned), 1/4 cup of Newman's Own Light Honey mustard dressing (the BEST honey mustard dressing on the market) and one small CLOVE of fresh crushed garlic. Yes, I know I put a BULB in the picture, but it was prettier!

I Mix the 1/4 cup of mayo with the 1/4 cup of honey mustard, then crush the fresh garlic directly into the bowl using my Pampered Chef Garlic Press (easily on of my top five favorite Pampered Chef products):

Stir very well with a fork, cover and keep in the fridge until it is time to make the sandwich.

Old habits die hard, and though Subway restaurants have moved on to the "Hinge Cut" I still maintain that their original method of the "U-Gouge" is the best way to cut bread for making a sandwich. It is hard to describe in words how to do a "U-Gouge" but you are basically cutting a wedge out of the top of the bread to form a walled gully in the bottom for holding sandwich ingredients:

Now for the fun part, filling the sandwich with whatever you like (or in my case, whatever I happened to have on hand):

I did sweet garlic mayo, Monterrey jack cheese, Swiss cheese (I put the spread on top of the cheese in these photos because the bread was still PIPING HOT when I made the sandwich, and I prefer the cheese to be a little melted and the mayo not be quite as warm), sliced turkey breast, onions, tomatoes and sea salt and black pepper. I served pickle slices on the side because Dear Husband does not like them on his sandwiches, and wouldn't you know, when we sat down to eat he put pickle slices in his part of the sandwich. :

I serve heroes on a cutting board so that each person can cut off the amount that they like:

Cut off a hunk of hero (or "eye-talian") and enjoy!

-Diana, The Ivy Kitchen

6 comments:

*A Daycare Life* said...

Great Subs LOL. I'm from California. we eat subs from subway LOL. BMT = Brooklyn Manhattan Transfer. RIGHT? That's my Fav Sub ever! I have never heard the term "Italian" for a sandwich unless actually talking about one w/ Italian things on it. That's funny eye talian. that makes me giggle a little.

Gina said...

That looks SOOOOOO good...and when people say eye-talian that drives me INSANE! lmao....

I wish I was as good as a cook as you, could make my own bread and all that jazz, so jealous, but I love reading your stuff.

Nea.Leah said...

Oh my goodness woman, That looks so darn yummy!! I really need to stop looking at your blog until I have this baby or I am gonna end up being 400 lbs, lol!

And I have to agree with Gina, 'eye'-talian drives me nutso! lol
Only because I am part Italian. :)

Jenna said...

Oh how that looks sooo good! I've been looking to try some new recipes and I might have to play with this one.

And yes, I understand the "eye-talian" completely...

Becky said...

Oh, Diana! That is great! You've inspired me on what to make for lunch today! Now, did you actually cut a section out of the bread and discard it? It looks like it's "hollowed out" a bit. Yummy!

Winston said...

Diana, Jonathan showed me this when he was he last week.... I love it. I am especially intrested in the flower jellies...will be trying that this week. pray all is well with you there. Give the family a hello for me... Stacey